Riya Sinha & Constantino Xavier
Introduction
India’s approach to the Indo-Pacific has, until now, predominantly revolved around its maritime interests. While traditionally emphasising continental security until the 2000s, New Delhi has recently sought to augment its geostrategic reach by adopting a more outward-looking, economically driven, and ocean-centric perspective. This shift is also evident in India’s connectivity initiatives aimed at enhancing regional interdependence in South Asia and the Bay of Bengal region. In these areas, New Delhi has made significantly faster progress in the maritime domain than in land connectivity. This includes developments in port infrastructure, maritime shipping agreements, new naval exercises, information sharing, and harnessing the blue economy. For example, the Sagarmala initiative, implemented in 2015, reflects a new urgency to invest in ports to enhance India’s trade prospects and is being developed as part of India’s new maritime doctrine, the Security and Growth for All in the Region (SAGAR), unveiled in the same year.
However, this strategic outlook and efforts in recent years have also led to a maritime-continental imbalance in India’s regional infrastructure initiatives. We argue that while the maritime initiatives in India’s Indo-Pacific approach are playing an important role in accelerating the geoeconomic convergence between South Asia and Southeast Asia, these investments along the coastline will have limited utility unless India also invests more efforts inland to develop multimodal connectivity around and beyond the Bay of Bengal littoral. Speaking at the 7th Indian Ocean Conference, in Perth (2024), India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar underscored the importance of adding a land dimension to maritime connectivity:
“As regards connectivity…let me highlight the need for lateral land-based connectivity across the Indian Ocean region. These are essential to supplement and complement the maritime flows. That is why, the IMEC Corridor to India’s West and the Trilateral Highway to India’s East are so significant” (MEA, 2024).
This paper surveys the persistent problems, causes, and effects of decades of neglect towards hinterland economies that remain landlocked and disconnected from each other, as well as from major ports and other coastal connectivity hubs. The almost complete lack of transportation and infrastructure linkages between India’s Northeast region (NER), eastern Bangladesh, and northern Myanmar best exemplifies how inland connectivity gaps are hindering the growth potential of this sub-region at the heart of India’s Indo-Pacific strategy.
Our paper suggests options for India to complement its Indo-Pacific oceanic outlook with a greater focus on land-based connectivity strategy around the Bay of Bengal region, especially in the Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal (BBIN) sub-region, and overland transportation linkages with Myanmar and Thailand. We assess nine domains with challenges and opportunities to do so both in the hard and soft dimensions of connectivity. The hard transportation and logistics dimension includes four sectors: road linkages, rail connectivity, and both land ports and dry ports to facilitate mobility, including trade in goods. Beyond transportation infrastructure, on the softer side, there are five additional domains warranting attention: institutional capacity to coordinate connectivity initiatives between central and state levels; instruments to support cross-border stability and security; new international partnerships, especially with regional organisations and multilateral institutions; closer regional collaboration on infrastructure norms and standards; and increased engagement with the private sector.
Methodology
This paper builds on the authors’ previous research findings and methodologies concerning various dimensions of land connectivity in South Asia.1 It employs a mixed-methods approach, which includes an extensive review of secondary literature, primary sources from key Indian ministries, regional and multilateral institutions, fieldwork, and site visits to transportation infrastructure at the India-Nepal and India-Bangladesh borderlands. This study also
comprises of closed-door policy consultations and stakeholder interviews in New Delhi, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Thailand. Furthermore, the paper draws on quantitative data to measure the extent of land connectivity in India’s regional integration initiatives. Most of the data used in this study is sourced from the Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, India, and the Land Ports Authority of India. For assessing Myanmar’s trade share with India and other Southeast Asian countries, data was obtained from Myanmar’s Ministry of Commerce.
Paper Structure
This paper is organised as follows. Section 2 explains the gaps in India’s land connectivity toward the East and elucidates the political, economic, and geostrategic causes that continue to delay hinterland connectivity. It also presents the costly effects of this neglect, impeding the development of India’s NER and overland economic linkages between South and Southeast Asia. We end this section by discussing how India’s response in recent years has only been partially successful in correcting the Bay of Bengal connectivity gaps: having prioritised maritime connectivity over land linkages, it must now complement this coastal approach with multimodal, inland connectivity initiatives.
Section 3 deep-dives into four hard infrastructure dimensions of land connectivity initiatives in the Bay of Bengal region (road, rail, integrated check posts, and land/dry ports) and discusses the challenges faced in their development. While overland transport remains the dominant form of cross-border transportation, it has not been the priority area for connectivity development. This section also suggests ways of overcoming some of the challenges at the operational level.
Section 4 focuses on five soft policy dimensions required for India to improve land connectivity in the region. This includes enhancing internal coordination, including inter-agency cooperation in New Delhi and centre-state coordination, and leveraging expertise to improve cross-border linkages; ensuring political stability and security, both internally and in neighbouring countries’ borderlands; exploring new regional and international partnerships through coordination with like-minded partners and multilateral institutions; collaborating on regulatory norms and standards, such as testing requirements, quality of infrastructure; and engaging the private sector, for example in logistics or inland port/terminal operations.
Beyond Coastal Connectivity: The Bay of Bengal’s Missing Land Bridges
While the focus on maritime connectivity is an important aspect of India’s strategic vision, it is also important to focus on understanding the causes of India’s missing land bridges around the Bay of Bengal. Without adequate inland and multimodal connectivity, it will be difficult to achieve the full potential of regional integration between South and Southeast Asia. Building overland linkages to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) markets is therefore an important angle for India to successfully implement its Act East policy.
In order to develop this, significant action is required to bridge these gaps and establish efficient land routes that connect coastal and inland regions. Investment in infrastructure development, such as roads and railways, is paramount to establishing a comprehensive multimodal transportation network. The development of land bridges would not only enhance trade and economic activities but also foster people-to-people connectivity, cultural exchanges, and regional integration. It would also spur economic corridors with the potential to stimulate growth and development in and around the Bay of Bengal region. This section focuses on the current gaps in transportation infrastructure in the region, traces their causes, and highlights the growth potential in the region if these challenges are overcome.
a. Persistent Problems: Gaps in Hinterland Transportation Infrastructure
In contrast to maritime connectivity developments, the land connectivity dimension in India’s regional engagement strategy continues to lag. For instance, despite numerous efforts, the India-MyanmarThailand (IMT) Highway has been in development for over twenty years, marked by successive delays. While China’s Tibetan plateau is now mostly connected via high-speed railway to Southeast Asia, there are still only ambiguous plans for a railway link between India’s state of Manipur and Mandalay in Myanmar. The ambition to substantially link India and Bangladesh to the economies of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam (CLMV), as well as with the regional manufacturing hub in Thailand, will hinge on the development of this missing rail link.
Furthermore, between India and Myanmar, the Kaladan Multimodal Transit Transport Project (KMTTP) has been partially operationalised through a maritime link between Sittwe and Kolkata ports, but there remains a missing land connection with Mizoram, with road building bogged down by repeated delays. While the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) is ready to implement a new maritime cooperation agreement, many road and rail linkages identified in the BIMSTEC Transport Infrastructure and Logistics Study (Asian Development Bank [ADB], 2018) under its 2014-20 work plan continue to languish.
At a sub-regional level, the Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal Motor Vehicles Agreement (BBINMVA), despite being signed in 2015, has yet to be implemented due to delays in the finalisation of passenger and cargo protocols. Other sub-regional initiatives, such as the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar (BCIM) corridor, have also seen little progress, mainly due to the ongoing conflict between India and China. Instead, China is promoting the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC) and is exploring its expansion to Sri Lanka (Srinivasan, 2023).
On the regulatory front, persistent challenges such as the lack of standardised testing requirements, disparities in the presence of regulatory agencies, variations in documentary requirements across different land border crossings, differences in the state of trade facilitation in all countries, limitations in truck movement protocols across borders etc., continue to hinder progress in land connectivity.
The land gap is also apparent in the almost negligible share of land-based trade with Myanmar, about 1 per cent of the total bilateral trade volume of less than USD 2 billion in recent years through the single border crossing point at Moreh (India) – Tamu (Myanmar).2 In contrast, approximately 90 per cent of Thailand-Myanmar’s total trade of approximately USD 5 billion is conducted overland through four border points (Table 1).
b. Continued Causes: Economic, Political, and Geostrategic Obstacles
The failures and delays of multiple regional economic, transportation, and connectivity initiatives such as those surveyed in the preceding section, are the legacy of a long history of disintegration in and around the Bay of Bengal. Marked by deep economic, security, and geopolitical divides, this region remains one of the world’s least integrated, with connectivity levels that pale in comparison to those in Europe and Southeast Asia, as well as in less developed regions in South America and West Africa.
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